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June 1988

An Open Reply to Professor Aaron Twerski (1988)

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A Rejoinder (1988)

Dear Dr. Lamm, I am delighted that you have taken the time to respond to my open letter to you. It was written to elicit a response and a clarification of your views. However, your letter leaves me with gnawing and troubling concerns. I hope that you will not misinterpret the sharpness of my comments as a personal attack. Indeed, only by honestly confronting the issues can we come to grips with the rather serious repercussions that followed upon The New York Times article reporting your Fifth Avenue speech. By now it is clear that in my open letter to you I faithfully ascribed to you the views that you truly embrace. It is also clear that from beginning to end, The New York Times article was a misrepresentation of the truth. In fact, it would be accurate to describe it as a caricature of the views that you so dearly hold. You have made it clear that you are deeply offended by both the terminology and the false image that the Times created — yet you sat idly by and did nothing to set the record straight. You criticize me for not checking the news report with you, to determine what you really said. Chaval! Why did you not check the news report with yourself? You spoke to an audience of four hundred. But for the world and posterity, your words will be those that were reported by the Times. It is to those words that you and I had to respond. The Times attributed to you terms such as “ultra-Orthodox” and “fundamentalist” as references to the “Right.” It further intimated that the “Right” was not open to secular culture. This image of the Orthodox Right as fundamentalist Bible-belt know-nothings is one that the Times generally has portrayed. Your own view is diametrically opposed. You have made it clear that you are deeply offended by both the terminology and the false images that the Times created — yet you sat idly by and did nothing to set the record straight. You say the Times reported the “valid groupings and spiritual dignity” remarks out of context. In order to un…
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Integrity or Unity: Which? (1998)

I am grateful to you for the tribute extended to me, especially since I have been associated with the Union, one way or another, for almost my entire career. And I am pleased that my working relationship with the O-U leadership, from the visionary days of Moe Feuerstein to the enormously focused and effective era of Mendy Ganchrow, has been felicitous, friendly, and fruitful. I feel even more honored by being included in the group of distinguished rabbis who are my co-honorees. As one who has been in the pulpit rabbinate for 25 years, and out of it for over 20 years, I am in a good position to evaluate the worth of the pulpit rabbis to the American Jewish Orthodox community. And I tell you, without exaggeration, that these eleven men are the unsung heroes of Torah Judaism in America. As the Passover Haggada has it, “Who knows eleven? I know eleven—eleven are the stars of the heavens.” They are truly stars, representative of the hundreds of our pulpit rabbis throughout the country who are so often taken for granted, working assiduously, usually outside the confined perimeters of the bustling centers of Jewish life and the Yeshivot with their consuming intensity. They are, in many ways, truly the sentinels of Yiddishkeit in America. I am proud that the Orthodox Union is recognizing these rabbis and the colleagues whom they represent. They, and the Orthodox Union, are worthy of our most heartfelt approbation.The Problem of UnityPermit me to share with you a problem that has been the cause of deep distress to me. We stand today at a critical juncture in the history of our people. Our generation must make a fateful decision: will we remain one people, or will we be fragmented to two or more peoples unable to marry each other and therefore permanently divided from each other?Since the beginning, it has been Torah, our ancestral faith, that has kept us as one, despite all the centrifugal forces threatening to pull us apart. With the weakening of Torah study and observance…
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Open Letter to Dr. Norman Lamm (1988)

On Tuesday, March 22, Dr. Norman Lamm, the president of Yeshiva University, spoke in Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Synagogue. His remarks were widely disseminated. In fact, the New York Times devoted considerable coverage to the event. The title of his address was “Centrist Orthodoxy: Agenda and Vision, Successes and Failures.” The Times report began: “Ultra-Orthodox Jews, including Hasidim, have set the religious agenda for too long in both the United States and Israel, the president of Yeshiva University said Tuesday, calling on moderate Orthodox elements to reassert themselves.... Dr. Lamm said the ultra-Orthodox has been ‘powered by triumphalism,’ which he defined as an attitude of, ‘We are winning, therefore we are right.’” This was not his first time to have attacked the Orthodox right and not the first time that he has sought to rally “centrists” to action. Due to the public nature of his statement, his words should not pass without comment. As a step toward dispelling some of the wrong impressions that were created by his statement, The Jewish Observer presents Professor Aaron Twerski’s open letter to Dr. Norman Lamm. Dear Dr. Lamm, עמו״ש: The remarks that follow are not intended to serve as a rebuttal to you. Nor do they constitute a retreat. As a card-carrying member of the “triumphalist” Orthodox right, and a Hasid to boot, I am confident enough to state without equivocation that our agenda for action will remain very much in place. But I am genuinely confused as to the substantive nature of the “centrist” view of things, as you espoused them. You did make a point of saying that you spoke as president of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, putting your words into a religious framework. All the more reason that your statement is worthy of scrutiny – and all the more do I find it disturbing. Your remarks “were not an attack, but an attempt at self-definition.” The definition followed: “Unlike the right wing... the centrist group is open to secular cultu…
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